To war

Immersed in the vivid and uncompromising memory of a Cuban revolutionary veteran, Argentine filmmaker Francisco Marise's short film never ceases to question the very essence and representation of the hero without war, the fervent soldier now abandoned to his solitude.

Formerly the armed fighter for the socialist struggles in Angola or Nicaragua, Andrés Mandarria still has the revolutionary strife firmly embedded in his soul and body. But how does one live the passion for the cause and the exaltation of the fight, at over sixty years old?

With deft precision and simplicity, the filmmaker patiently collects the missing words of a reclusive protagonist who is forced to stop. But against the motionless backdrop of memories and archives, the resilient body of the warrior counteracts a stark resistance, re-enacting, alone in the forest, the choreography of past battles

Nonetheless, this initially astonishing simulacrum translates, gradually, the triumph of an ideological enemy that has become both invisible and sovereign. The collapse of a kingdom in agony runs through the film, as witnessed by the formidable scene that captures the hero's exhausted reaction to the news of Líder Máximo’s death. Francisco Marise's beautiful film finds its poetry in the margins where hope and adversity come face to face.

Terence Chotard
Filmmaker